eye view of the world. film makers but cameras on birds for this documentary. winged planet. you don't want to miss it. find out how they did that at 4:00 eastern time. i'm fredricka whitfield. your money starts right now. a new report out friday points to a steadier labor market but some conservative conspiracy theorys are trying to spin it for political gain. i'm ali velshi than is your money. let's get to the facts. christine romans has the numbers for us. >> hello. we have an unemployment rate in the united states that dropped to 7.8%. that's down from 8.1%. the prior month. that's one survey. that's the household survey. the other survey of businesses shows net jobs created 114,000 jobs created. below average for the year but a few thousand more than economists were expecting. let me show the long term

unemployed. 40% of people out of work in this country have been out of work for six months or longer and then there's the underemployment number. we report this every month. 14.7% of the labor market are either unemployed or working part time. they would like to be working full time. they are not being used to their potential. those are the headline numbers from hat jobs report. >> stay with us. the jobs report numbers were quickly politicized. more quickly than normal. i want to bring in labor secretary hilda solis. good to see you again. it's bean while. i didn't think we would be talking for this reason but some conservative voices challenge the legitimacy of the labor department's numbers when they came up on friday. they said how is it possible that we created 114,000 jobs, not enough generally to keep pace with population growth and yet the unemployment number went down? the percentage. they said they suggested they hinted that there might have

been political interference in the labor department's calculations. i find this quite stunning. >> it is. it's ludicrous. it's totally inaccurate. i have the highest regard and faith in our bureau of labor statistic individuals. these are civil servants. they are not political. they served many years in their capacities as professional statistician, economists, analysts. they serve under republican as well as democratic administration. they are not political at all. i receive the information the first friday of the month at 8:00 a.m. in the morning and i am reporting on exactly what is given to me. there's no manipulation that occurs, and i am just astounded that people are making these accusations. it's unfortunate because what the fact of the matter is that we've seen job growth. we've seen a lot of people who now are fining employment and you have basically two survey, one that reports receipts of jobs being created, payroll and then you have the household

survey. the household survey also includes people that are self-employed and that are attached to new jobs that are coming about. you know these are the smaller jobs but small businesses that are creating jobs. so both of them are married and we come up with the information that's presented to me. and all i can say is that in the past, you know, in the past 2 1/2 years we've seen now 5.2 million private-sector jobs created. can we do better? absolutely we have to do better. >> that wasn't the argument. i agree with you. that's a separate discussion as to whether we can do better. the issue of attacking the bureaucracy is new even in america. let me ask enthusiast. there's been no substantial change in the way these numbers have been calculated in recent history. >> no. exactly. this methodology has been in place for decades. >> secretary solis, i'm glad you could join us to clear thunder. a pleasure to see you again. >> few. thank you. >> christine, secretary solis

told us something you and i know, that this is calculated, two separate surveys. what she was explaining is the job creation numbers that bar graph you always use is a report of companies and their payrolls. the unemployment number the percentage which has gone down today, this week, is a percentage of -- that's a number based on household survey, phoning people at home. >> i'll make two points. if you believe as one limited government group said in a press release that there are baghdad bombs in the bureau of labor statistics making up numbers for the regime, if you believe that like some conspiracy theorists do why weren't these numbers better for the past three years and why were the numbers so lackluster the day after the president gave his speech at the dnc taking the wind out of the dnc because the headline the next day was about a jobs number that wasn't very good. it doesn't make any sense. it defies logic.

we know these people. we crunch the same numbers these people are crunching. it shows you how disgusting and contentious an election can be. people realize our government is big. it's become much bigger. and well thinking moderates in both parties can say we need a smaller footprint of the government. when the small government movement comes out and says crazy things like this it hurts their cause. >> agree with you. thanks for clearing that up. stay there we'll be back to you. stephen moore is a writer for the "wall street journal". stephen, i want to talk about the real stuff here, the real meat of this jobs report. i think christine's point is very valid and that is there's a reasonable and strong argument for mauler, more effective government in the united states but these kind of conspiracy

theorys do nothing to then cause. >> reporter: it's miystifying. a lot of us economists are peering these numbers closer but i don't believe there was a conspiracy. >> if you don't believe there was a expiration. take your best shot. it's not a number that barack obama can really crow about. identify been saying for a very long time, people ignore the unemployment rate because it moves around in an unpredictable way. jobs added and jobs loss number is the one you can get your teeth into. not enough for barack obama to crow about. not that much for mitt romney to sink his teeth into. >> reporter: barack obama will crow about this number and already has. you know, we did see a big gain in this household survey. here's one of the problems with the number that came out. the big gain in jobs, ali, about 600,000 of those jobs were an

increase in part time work. now, look, working part time is better than not having a job at all no, question about it. but try feeding your family, try paying your medical bills, try paying for all your other expenses like your mortgage with a 20 to 25 hour job. so, look. i think the american people still believe as i do, it's still a pretty miserable labor market out there. it's getting a little better but not a whole lot. >> diane swank is a chief economist. she joins us from chicago. diane let's talk about it. 7.8% unemployment rate. an improvement but we're not out of the wood yet. let's dealing with the real numbers. 1.1 million people unemployed in september. 40% of them have been unemployed for six months or more. as stephen just alluded to many jobs created are not of the quality you would like to see. what's your evaluation of where we are in our efforts to get our jobs back? >> i think the point that stephen made about the 600,000

is important because it's two-thirds of those jobs where people were looking for full time to extend on stephen's point and only got part time. some of that is seasonal hires. retailers are hiring sooner and earlier for the halloween which is the second largest spending holiday the year. good. they got the jobs. it's not what they want. not the quality they want. when we look at the payroll survey you see that great divide that's emerging between domestic demand and consumer which is a little more confident. more so because they've seen home values couple. that's their largest wealth factor. no longer falling. we're seeing refinancing pick up 80% of mortgages being, applications today are refinance applications and a lot of that money is coming back into the economy and will help during the fourth quarter. that's the good news. bad news is all the job losses on the good producing side of the sector. manufacturing job loss two months in a row. that's global demand and the

global weakness. you see the unevenness of the recovery persist. >> that's the stuff that presidential candidates or presidents can have difficulty moving the needle on. you did talk about housing which i've been calling the golden lining around the cloud. i want to bring in don peebles. he owns a real estate firm. he's a democrat. don most of your work is in sort of bigger stuff. you're not buying individual homes. but there's definitely stuff going on in the construction sect jobs in home building, in home buying as diane said in refinancing. these low rates as expensive as they've been to keep in place seem to be combining with low home price, low property price and causing some activity. >> the housing market has picked up especially in more of our global cities. if you look at the market in miami, for example, which was one of the biggest drops when the housing recession hit the hardest miami is back. miami is back in a very big way. new york back in a very big way. washington, d.c. is back.

markets like phoenix they are back as well. nevada for example still has a lot of difficulty. it's a combination of foreign interests. foreigners buying in our market especially south florida where south americans are looking at our u.s. markets as being very, very cheap. so, you look at a big chunk of those buyers in florida, for example, are foreign buyers. so many americans are taking advantage of these lower interest rates. also rental rates have gone up so much that the cost of ownership now in many instances after taxes is less money than it cost to rent. the big challenge, though, is that we're not getting enough people being able to move up out of their existing houses. we're not getting enough people to relocate because they are stuck in their homes even though they are current on their mortgages, even though they qualify for their mortgages, the home is worth so much less than their current mortgage amounts they can't get out and refinance. so there's go to be a new policy

that comes in to address that challenge. >> ali can i mention something about housing for a second. i want to pat myself on the back. as you know for the last year or two i've been bullish on real estate and housing. and i think that we are seeing, this gentleman is right if you look at the major markets you're seeing a rebound in real estate especially in states like florida and states like arizona. and what's interesting is the two reasons i think you're seeing an uptick is number one, you got these mortgage rates that we're going to be telling our grandchildren the last time you go get a mortgage for less than 4%. the other thing if you're worried a little bit about inflation taking up in the future, i am, a good way to protect yourself against inflation, own real estate because it holds its value. >> i want all three of you to stay right where you are. we'll talk more about jobs and how housing is not the silver lining but what gold lining in the economic storm clouds that are threatening the recovery. [ male announcer ] now you can swipe...

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email marketing from constant contact reaches people in a place they're checking every day -- their inbox. and it gives you the tools to create custom emails that drive business. it's just one of the ways constant contact can help you grow your small business. sign up for your free trial today at constantcontact.com/try. we're talking friday's jobs data with our panel. diane what were you saying just before the break about housing, not always as safe as we think it is. >> there's two critical issues. house is number one and on low levels. we're seeing housing recovery,

things like apartment rentals more than single family after adjusting for household formation we're at depression levels in the housing market on housing starts. that's where the bang for dollar in terms of employment is in single family housing construction. we're seeing investors come in because of all the right things, steve and i agree it's a good time to buy real estate. that said, there's investors coming into real estate, buying single family properties either renovating or renting it. when you flip to rent a single family home versus floipg buy you have far less multipliers. renters are hard on properties rather than owners. multipliers are much less but we're not seeing the real come back in single family housing starts that we would like to see to see if the jobs you really want to see. that's where the bang for the dollar is. that's why fed picked mortgaging backed securities to purchase to help that market. >> let's take this over to don

for a second. you're the guy who can explain in very clear terms for my audience how it is with a combination of low interest rates and low property rates and a boom in housing, how much of a relationship that has to job creation. there still may be some people in this country who don't get what a big deal is that. how do you create jobs. >> number one is construction jobs. when there's demand for new housing and when inventories decline as they have been doing over these past 36 months gradually going down and now significantly going down, for example, inventory in miami is about what it was during the boom time. what that does it creates a demand for new inventory, new product, new construction. not just on housing, by the way on multifamily housing, condo, hotels, all generate construction jobs and there's tremendous construction job generator so that crates jobs there. massive amounts of supplies and building materials that are necessary and architect, engineers, professionals, even

the lawyers. they all get hired to help create this product of real estate housing and so forth. also i disagree by the way that real estate is not the best hedge against inflation. it is. if you look at 2006 i can assure you by 2016 those property values will have come back and that aspect, that real estate aspect even in las vegas will have out performed inflation during that same ten year window of time. it's a long term assets. americans need to look at it not as a commodity, it's not a stock, it's an asset you have use out of and over time it hedges an american family against inflation. over 10, 20, 30 years. he paid about 16,000 for it and sold it for 500,000 and it was his nest egg for retirement. >> but the problem is a lot of

people don't hold their homes that long. i've been in a house for 21 years. i agree with that in terms of principal of having a home for a long time but that's just not the way the american housing market has worked over the last 20 years and that's important to point out. >> it has worked up until the big boom in real estate, the average hold of single family homes was often years. if americans look at housing as not a speculative asset but as an asset that they can utilize and invest in their long term future they will outperform any other asset. >> we're agreeing on this point. i want to ask steven moore something here. i think all three of us -- there are four ever us. forget my math. all four of us agree on this haut. why is it that's not why mitt romney says he can create 12 million jobs over four years. he talks almost exclusively about lowering taxes to spur job growth. i have a suspicion you actually agree with him on that. >> i know you've been skeptical of that number. i think it's very achieve

scrabble. as you noted with that chart that you were showing even though we have had 5 million new jobs over the last four years, do you realize we're still about 4 million jobs short of where we were in 2007. so we still have a lot of ground to be made up. in fact we should be growing the labor force and employment by about double the rate that we are. if we pick up the pace we should be at and keep that for four years i really do believe 12 million jobs is achievable. my goodness we did that in the 1980s under a republican president, ronald reagan and a democratic president bill clinton. >> and gdp was 4.8%. 4.5% in one case. 4.3%. i can find economists who will tell me we'll have that kind of growth rate. >> we should aspire to 12 million jobs. i should aspire to look like brad pitt. that won't happen either. thank you for coming on the show. coming up something bocandidate

on. >> if somebody gets an advanced degree i would staple that diploma to their green card. >> as soon as they get an advanced degree we send them home to create jobs somewhere else. >> immigrant entrepreneurs could be a powerful force but u.s. policy is standing in the way. here to here. this bigger screen goes from here to here. now that's either a) an amazing coincidence ..

or b) a dazzling display of common sense. pretty sure it's the common sense thing.

have more fiber than other leading brands. they're the better way to enjoy your fiber. friday's jobs numbers underscore something we knew. we need more jobs. how do you create them. one answer may surprise you. immigration. how does bringing more people into this country already without enough work create jobs. doesn't it take jobs away from hard-working americans who desperately need employment? the truth is that highly skilled immigrants with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, aka, the stem jobs create jobs for other americans. according to one study from 2000 to 2007 for every 100 foreign

born workers who earned an advanced stem degree here in the united states and went on to work in those fields, that created an additional 262 jobs for native born americans. instead of embracing this the u.s. immigration policy sends those highly skilled immigrants many of them educated in the best american colleges and universities back home to their countries of origin so they can create jobs there competing against the u.s. by the way in the global economy. it's called the reverse brain drain. joining me is a director of research at duke university and a fellow at stamford law school and the author of "the immigrant exodus, why america is losing the global race to capture entrepreneurial talent." from 1995 to 2005 immigrants founded more than a quarter of all tech and engineering startups in united states and more than 52% of those in silicon valley. you just updated the numbers and immigrant entrepreneurship has

declined. talk to me about this. why it is happening and how do we fix it >> very simple. there are million skilled immigrants waiting for permanent resident via sass. many want to start companies and employ americans. we won't give them via sass. they are getting frustrated and fed up and trotting home. the jobs that would be boosting american competitiveness are boosting our competition. >> it's weird. it's a policy that both presidential candidates disagree with. they both think, you heard mitt romney want to stam a green card to the degree. you heard barack obama say that. tell me where is the hold up? >> i call them juveniles. our political leaders are battling each other rather than trying to fix the real problem they agree on immigration. everyone agrees we need a start up visa to allow immigrants to have start up companies. it's good for america. they won't give each other

political victory. both sides support stem but won't agree on legislation for petty wrangling that they are doing. it's silly what's going on in capitol hill. >> the same stuff we've been talking about for the whole rest of the show. they can't agree on stuff that will send us in a recession. this is way down the political totem pole. easier to get rich in asia than anywhere else in the world. does this exodus of immigrants show there's other opportunities. >> absolutely. my team at duke had surveyed several hundred entrepreneurs that went back. we were shocked to learn they were doing better back home. how could they be doing better back in india and china with all the corruption and pollution and so on but they said they were doing better financially, doing better in terms of quality of life. every metric they are doing better back home than here. big surprise.

this is a wakeup call for america we can't assume this is the only land of opportune. for great people opportunities in many countries in the world. unless we do everything we can to get them here they will become our competition. >> let's hold on to permanent residency and start up visas. companies can temporarily hire qualified immigrants. the number is capped at 65,000 of these visas per year plus another 0,000 for immigrants with advanced degrees. almost every year employer demand exceeds the number of h-1b visa with stem upgs stem o dominating the need. look at where we're getting these visa requests. computer occupations, 152,000, engineers, 26,000, business operations 20,000. health and treating 18,000. finance 13,000. you say we need more of these via sass but admit there's a

dark side to this program. what is the dark side? >> the dark side is right now if you're coming on an h-1b visa you're tied to the employer. you can only work for the employer that brought in. if you apply for a green card it could take 15 years. in the meantime you're stuck work forge the same employer. these employer know they have you captive. therefore they are less likely to give you promotion or increases than other people. you're stuck doing the same me niall job. you have smart people coming here, doing the same me niall jobs that they did when they entered in the country for decades. this is bad for america and for our competitiveness. >> let me ask you this. critics of this h-1b program what we're saying is false. these are unskilled people coming in to take these jobs, taking jobs from americans and we constantly hear it and you will get tweets and so am i from

people who say i'm highly skilled and i can get a job. we don't have a shortage. >> well, you know, this is the research that brookings institute did. they looked at the jobs of h-1b workers. it's regional. there's shortages in silicon valley but not in other parts of america. but whenever there's more immigrants, more demand there's more economic growth. it builds on itself that they will come in, work for a company, start their own companies and hire more americans. this is what made american it is. silicon valley is half of immigrant. >> always a pleasure to see you. thank you my friend to join us. we'll talk about this more once we don't have to talk about economic fiscal crisis. president obama and mitt romney talked about jobs at the debate. they discussed taxes, debt, even big bird. but neither candidate mentioned

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i've been warning you about the coming economic storm. that as positive job numbers and higher consumer confidence are convincing many of you the storm or talking about it makes me full of hot air. there's a storm coming if congress doesn't act soon. i'm talking about the fiscal cliff. more than $600 billion worth of budget cuts and tax hikes for next year mandated to start taking effect as early as january 1st. what can happen you can. let's bring in christine romans. she's the host of your bottom line to answer that very question. >> i cannot confirm or deny you're full of hot air but i can tell you tax hikes will affect us all if nothing is done avert this fiscal cliff.

here's what we're looking at. tax policy center forecasts american households will pay on average $3,500 more in tax physician congress let the bush era tax cuts expire for everyone. what effect could that and across the board spending cuts have on the wider economy? a new report from the center for regional analysis at george mason university predicts that some 277,000 federal employees will lose their jobs in the next 12 months. that's 14% of the federal workforce. and 14 of the 17 economists surveyed by cnn money predict fiscal cliff will cause a new recession. interestingly all 17 believe the economy won't plunge off the cliff because they think congress will finally get its act together and do something in the lame duck session following the elections or when the new congress convenes in late january. lame in either case. but by then it could be too late for the economy because

companies don't like uncertainty as you know and some say they are holding back on hiring. we can't have an economic recovery without job creation. >> so with the looming economic disaster like the fiscal cliff you would have expected the topic to top the agenda at the presidential debate. i wanted to know the leadership they would take. you have devised a word cloud from that first debate and it turn out that the words most uttered, the words most uttered were the big one. people, romney. what doesn't jump out is fiscal cliff. neither president obama or mitt romney mentioned it at all during wednesday's debate. i was kind of amazed, christine. i was amazed to have a debate focused on the economy and not one word about how these guys would avert the fiscal cliff and not one question from the moderator about the most serious thing that could be facing our economy right now.

christine stay right where you are. i want to bring in john king who has been a debate moderator in the past as well as sam nunn, a senator from georgia. he's actively working with both alan simpson and erskine bowles to find sensible solutions to the current gridlock. think of this as simpson-bowles 2.0. senator nunn has been highly critical of both republicans and democrats over their handling of the fiscal cliff that threatens our economy. senator nunn you said both sides steam have a political strategy but their governing strategy is in doubt. those are your words. have you ever seen america so broken that lawmakers would rather take the economy to the brink. why are we richinging this? why are rerisking people's decisions whether to employ somebody. >> it's a very dangerous game of chicken going on and i think that game needs to be changed

and even changed quickly. the lame duck session can do that. what i would like to see is instead of kicking the can down the road and kicking the cliff down the road with this same draconian solution if we don't reach an agreement change the can before you kick it. that means something like simpson bowles. so you give the next congress time to take their own course if they choose to but failing that would you have a soft landing rather than a disaster which is what we face now unless changes are made. so i do believe -- >> that's an interesting point. >> you kick the can but a different can. >> what an interesting point. we tried the, if you don't do it it's going to be catastrophe and guess what we couldn't trust them to avert catastrophe in good times. you're saying we need to do something else but say this is what it will look like. there are times this wouldn't be as damaging as it now. let me bring in john king.

john you watched the comment on the presidential debate. president obama or mitt romney even mentioned the fiscal cliff. they talked a lot about the economy and jobs. if i were a voter i would demand an answer on exactly how anyone wants any elected office in washington plans to prevent this insanity. >> it came up indirectly when jim lehrer in the republican primaries, raise your hand if you'll take a deal for $1 in tax increases you get $10 in spending cuts and none of the republicans took that deal. the president doesn't want to talk about this before the election because he has to look democrats in the eye if i cut a real deal it will cut some programs. governor romney knows if you still have a democratic senate roughly divided evenly congress the revenue question will be back on the table in some form. senator nunn has been gone from the town for a while and grateful for that. he used to serve in what they dauld world's most deliberative

body. not so much any more. >> all of stay here. we got nor discuss. coming up winston churchill said you can always count on americans to do the right thing after they've tried everything else. why is sam nunn confident that this congress can come together and come up with something he just suggested the condition being a soft landing not a hard dangerous landing that could send us into a recession. that's coming up next on your money. (train horn) vo: wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern. one line, infinite possibilities. when the doctor told me that i could smoke for the first week... i'm like...yeah, ok... little did i know that one week later i wasn't smoking.

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back on your money, back with former georgia senator sam nunn, senator nunn you made a very interesting suggestion a few moments ago that, okay, if congress is bound to kick the can on a decision about cutting spending, and deficit control, change the can.

come up with a condition for not making a deal that is actually palatable and not horrible for the economy like the currents situation we have. tell me how that would happen. are there enough people like you and those who you are trying network with who are still in office in washington to hammer out a more perfect compromise? >> i think those kind of people are in the house and the senate. i think they are talking with each other. but the problem is, ali, they are not getting support from their own leaders in the congress, republicans or democrats. they are not getting support from the white house. they are not getting support from their party base who insist on 100% solution in their favor. and the american people, the common sense americans that i think are in the great majority have to rise up because that's the missing part of the airplane is the middle. the wings are flapping and make being their voices heard but the middle is not. that's got to happen because we got get behind people like

chambliss and mark warner from virginia and many others that are working together. >> john, you follow this in and out. you probably have a sense of congressional districts where there are people who might do this. how is that going to play? the wings are flapping and making noise. nothing is coming from the middle. >> i love the analogy. there's a lot of did you say function and there's going to be dysfunction until we have the election. we'll have the lame duck session. that lame duck session and this question of the fiscal cliff will be heavily influenced by what happens in that election. if governor romney wins the election republicans will be less likely to come to the table seriously ready to talk about revenues. if the president win election he'll say that's a mandate from the american people we're getting rid of bush tax cuts. but the composition of the house and senate even though this lame duck session is the current congress what they see happening in november will greatly influence. the best thing, the best thing between now and election is for

you to talk about this on your program. hopefully the candidates talk about it around the country and the american people in their votes on november 6th makes some kind of decision on this. you mentioned it didn't come up much in the debate. most candidates for congress won't talk about it because it requires tough choices. >> ali, even the people who have to fix this. we talk about the senators, a few senators who are starting to talk about starting to talk about a framework and we don't have an awful lot of time. between you talk to them and say look can you tell me what are you doing? we know there's a meeting next week. when your going to hammer this out. who is involved. they get skittish. they don't raise expectations. they really, really are far apart still ali. very, very far apart. for all those people in washington who say don't worry 11th hour they will get it done that's not good enough. they haven't started. >> i'm getting tweets. you're chicken little the world is falling they will make a deal it will be fine. why your worrying about this

recession. you even said the economists said they will get a deal. what are we worried about this? >> the danger is a big recession. if they get a deal the danger is the worse thing they can do is go off the cliff. second thing is say we'll punt for three months. now we have a framework and give ourselves a year how to get $4 trillion in spending cuts and make everybody happy. guess what you will have businesses who say we can't do anything until they get this mess fixed. >> sam nunn, do you think that everybody involve in this gets that there is a danger, it may not be huge but there is a danger you can push this fledgling economy, this fledgling recovery into a recession. >> let me give you the encouraging spin on the debate which goes to that point. both candidates, president obama and governor romney said good things about simpson bowles. neither one embraced it.

the other thing that happened we've had some creeping candor going on here in terms of the structural debate, structural deficit situation. governor romney made it clear that he's going to have rate cuts but not tax cuts. he's talking about revenue mutual reduction in change. on the other side president obama, this was a dog that didn't bark in effect because usually democrats talk about medicare and social security in a way that indicates they would never do anything about it. president obama to his credit did not do that. so i took some encouraging spin during the debate. >> we're encouraged. >> something that congress can build on. that may give the people in the congress working together a little more ammunition. >> very good. all right. thank you, senator. good to see you as always, senator sam nunn. john king as always. good to see you. and christine romans.

coming up next big promiraculous small returns. can political leaders create jobs for our voters around the world or are they being lied to. q and a next with richard quest. to help those affected and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open, and many areas are reporting their best tourism seasons in years. and bp's also committed to america. we support nearly 250,000 jobs and invest more here than anywhere else. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. our commitment has never been stronger. of course, some stories are bigger than others. a story. okay guys, here we go. everybody say, 'cheeeeeeeee-eeeeeese'.

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which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. the fiscal cliff we're racing toward a just the latest incompetence of our officials and also proof of what a small world we live in since people make unsubstantiated claims about the economy all the time. for all the things that matter in the economy, jobs matter most. they can give a candidate traction or even victory. joining me is my esteemed colleague, richard quest. and a man who would never make a

promise that he couldn't keep. richard, today's q & a question, can political leaders actually create jobs or are voters around the world like those in america being lied to and given false expectations? i'm going to go first. ring the bell, and give me 60 seconds. >> presidents don't do as much to fuel jobs growth as president obama or mitt romney would like you to believe. they have more impact, but it's really about the business cycle. u.s. job growth may have more to do with slow downs in europe and asia than anything washington does. the only thing they can do is instill confidence in consumers who feel comfortable spending their moneys thereby creating demands and jobs. mitt romney after making a ridiculous claim to create 12 million jobs in four years argues the way he's going to tut

taxes without creating a deficit is people will be working and spending the money they're not paying in taxes. it could happen. i could also become as tall and handsome as you are, richard, but i don't go around promising to do so. how much can politicians do to create jobs? i guess they can create stability and an expectation of what is going to happen. richard, what do you think? >> i'm glad you asked. politicians do not, cannot, and will not create jobs. we agree on that. we also agree on the fact that they create an environment that allows the private sector, men and women who start businesses, to actually go out and create the jobs that we all seek. but here's the important point. there is a no difference -- a big difference this time around because what has happened is the awful deep structural recession. we are slowly but surely

crawling our way out of a mess that took years to get into, and we certainly are not going to solve in a matter of a couple months. that is why politicians who make promises are so disingenuous. that's why politicians who promise jobs are so dangerous. and that is why politicians who promise jobs should be ignored. in the european union, we have unemployment over 11% and it is rising. that is the true disgrace of politicians and jobs. >> difficulty, though, is when they both -- both sides made the same promises and you get stuck in the pickle you're in. >> i heard you, ali velshi, maybe they can find the moment when you promised this. you promised that if one of those political promises were broken, i think you said you would wear a dress. >> if they make it, if they

create 12 million jobs in four years, i'll wear a dress, but i'll be so happy that the economy is doing so well, it won't matter. we'll erase this tape. hopefully this doesn't get recorded. richard quest, host of quest means business. cut his mike off right now. speaking of money, we have to raise some so we're going to take a commercial break. when we come back, investors have cashed out $5.1 million worth of stock mutual funds last week. the financial kriez is hitting, you're scared, and who is looking out for you? the consumer financial business bureau. they're protecting your money. you can now try snapshot from progressive free for 30 days. just plug this into your car, and your good driving can save you up to 30%. you could even try it without switching your insurance. why not give it a shot?

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in the fallout of the financial crisis of 2008, it was obvious american people needed a watch dog and they got one in the form of the cfpb. it was created as part of dodd-frank. the bureau was slow getting on its feet but now it's up and running and so far this year, the agency has put $425 million back into the pockets of defrauded consumers. just this week, the cfpb ordered american express to refund $85 million to more than 250,000 of its customers. the cfpb charged the company with violating consumer protections laws at, quote, every stage of the consumer experience, from marketing to enrollment to payment to debt collection. in the last few months, the bureau has targeted deceptive and illegal practices at discover bank, capital one, and all of the major credit ancients. they're sending a strong message to wall street that things have